President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed three new decrees imposing personal sanctions against Russian citizens. “Against those Russians who are involved in the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. Against those representatives of Russian sports who are trying to put sports at the service of aggression. And against those who help support mercenary structures in Russia for the war against Ukraine and all free people,” the Ukrainian leader said in a video message published on the official Telegram channel.
Zelensky did not name specific names; the decrees he mentioned have not yet been published on the president's website.
Earlier in February, it became known that the European Union, as part of a new package of sanctions, would blacklist Russian officials who are considered involved in organizing mass abductions of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories: Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Moscow Region Vyacheslav Dukhin and Minister of Family, Labor and Social defense of Bashkortostan to Lenar Ivanov.
Researchers of the Conflict Observatory project, which operates at the Yale University Health Institute, USA, found out that in several Russian regions, as well as in the annexed Crimea, there is a network of institutions in which Ukrainian children are subjected to indoctrination. The Ukrainian authorities claim that about 14,000 children were taken out of the country. So far, only 125 of them have been returned.